I am a writer, lecturer and professor of English and cultural history at Liverpool John Moores University. My most recent books are Queuing for Beginners (2007), a cultural history of daily habits since the war, inspired in part by the Mass-Observation surveys of the 1930s and 1940s: On Roads: A Hidden History (2009); and Armchair Nation: An Intimate History of Britain in Front of the TV (2013). As well as publishing articles in obscure academic journals, I write for the Guardian, the New Statesman, the Financial Times and other publications. I am a literary and cultural historian focusing on the very recent past, with a particular interest in the everyday. My latest book is Shrinking Violets: A Field Guide to Shyness (Profile 2016), which was published in February 2017 in a revised North American edition by Yale University Press as Shrinking Violets: The Secret Life of Shyness.
This website is an archive of the writing I have done over the years, assembled in an effort to persuade myself that I haven’t been entirely wasting my time. ‘A luxurious task, this cobbling up of ancient toil,’ as Ronald Blythe puts it.
My banner image is by the wonderful Czech artist and children’s illustrator, Miroslav Sasek. As Sasek died in 1980 without an heir, it is difficult to determine who holds the rights to his work, but no copyright infringement is intended. All the other images on this site are either my own or are marked for non-commercial reuse on Google Images.
I hope you enjoy my site and find something of interest on it.
My old blog is archived here.
Image above: ‘London Visitors 1962’ by Don O’Brien – originally posted to Flickr. Licensed under CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons
Much enjoyed the article on milk bars whilst searching for information on The Partisan where I hung out in 59′-61 when I first went to live in London.
LikeLike
great, thanks! Glad you enjoyed it.
LikeLike
[…] and medicalizing shyness. It’s no surprise, then, that he appreciates cultural historian Joe Moran supporting this same type of position in his new “field guide” subtitled The Secret […]
LikeLike
I went to your talk about shyness, and it gave me an appreciation of my own. Thanks so much. It has made me see my ‘strangenesses’ in a new light.
You, who I dare say can be rendered inarticulate in certain situations, are so exceedingly articulate when in front of an audience.
I should have loved to ask you questions. (but I am too shy to speak in public.)
My aunt, when I was little said “I’ve no time for shyness. It is pure vanity.” I guess being self conscious is a form of vanity…
LikeLike
thanks Val – really pleased you enjoyed the talk. Thanks so much for coming.
LikeLike
Hi Joe,
I checked out Shrinking Violets after reading your article in the Guardian and I loved it. You have many great insights on the paradoxical power of shyness and its relation to the production of art, and how nonparticipation can enable an acute sense of perception that can decipher others’ interactions with sociological precision, or, if improperly managed, can turn insular and distort one’s sense of self until it feels performative and fantastical. I’ve long believed that art is a means of giving expression to feelings that would otherwise be too shameful or monstrous or trivial to mention in a conversation, even with an intimate friend. I’m writing a novel that also deals with isolation and the neuroses that arise from loneliness, and you’ve helped me understand better why my own characters act the way they do.
I loved this in particular: “One of the impulses underlying art is our sense that other kinds of dialogue have failed and that we need to absent ourselves and communicate at one remove if we are to communicate at all…it may require years of self-imposed solitude, so that something intended as a cure or coping mechanism for shyness only ends up aggravating it. Shy artists, unable to bear the risk of potentially awkward conversation in the present, take an even bigger risk, betting on a vicarious exchange that might, if they are lucky, pay off in some long-deferred future.”
LikeLike
Thanks Alex. Thanks for reading the book and I’m really pleased you enjoyed it. Good luck with the novel and glad it helped.
LikeLike
I loved your recent article on slow reading in The Guardian (15/9/2018). And the phrase “the obdurate otherness of another person’s mind” resonated especially strongly with me!
LikeLike
Great to hear. Thank you!
LikeLike
Joe,
I much appreciated your article on reading slowly. It well reflects my approach in writing fiction, where I’ve tried to slow the reading of it. As a reader, while also enjoying the occasional ‘page turner’, the phrase often makes me feel a little sick. It’s this apparent wish to get to the end of something quickly, which to my mind has undertones of being involved with/in something of no great value.
Many thanks for the article and best wishes
@johnsaulauthor
LikeLike
Thanks John – kind of you to write.
LikeLike
Joe: I have not read your other articles and books (yet), but I certainly will. I was given your book, First You Write a Sentence, last Friday. I am devouring it, but savoring it at the same time. I read and re-read some of your sentences 6-8 times. It is nourishment for the soul. I am beginning to appreciate the part of my inner self that desires to create. I have something to say.
Thank you Joe and thank you to the person who gave me your book. I am indebted.
LikeLike
Thanks Bradley! That’s very kind of you. Sorry about the delay in replying.
LikeLike
Joe, I just finished your new book ‘First You Write A Sentence’, and I must say that I like it a lot. Not only is it informative but also an example of great writing. Can you recommend authors with similar writing styles, authors you like reading or appreciate as a writer? I am particularly interested in non-fiction writers whose style feels modern and fresh.
LikeLike
Thank you! Authors I particularly enjoy for their style at the moment are Diana Athill, Yiyun Li (particularly her essays Dear Friend etc.), Natalia Ginzburg (The Little Virtues), Joan Didion, Kathleen Jamie, Eduardo Galeano, Mary Oliver (prose as well as poems), Vivian Gornick. And many others …
LikeLike
Thanks very much!
LikeLike
Hi Joe
I feel compelled to write to thank you. I’ve just finished reading your book ‘First you write a sentence’ and now feel invigorated to continue writing a little handbook, a simple textbook targeting untrained workers in care services. But until I read your book, I was rapidly losing confidence I could ever write anything that could engage and hold, let alone inspire, a potential reader. Now I look forward to my time writing and fixing, with more helpful reflection rather than unhelpful ridicule. I made notes on your advice in sentence and paragraph structure, and I lapped up your delicious examples in the text, but I most appreciate your advice to novice writers like myself to have the courage to use our own voice. Friends and associates in the sector told me I should write this book. You told me how I might achieve it, and then gave me the confidence to keep going. Thank you!
LikeLike
hi Judy
That’s lovely to hear, thank you. I’m really pleased it was helpful. Best of luck with your own book!
Joe
LikeLike
Hi Joe, may I be among the many to congratulation you for Armchair Nation. I can’t put it down – the interwoven stories of how it changed Britain are fascinating, such as how it changed knitting habits or the growth of collared doves. Its the history of post-war Britain itself. Why can’t all academics write this lucidly? There really needs to a be a movement within the universities.
LikeLike
Thank you Sean – that’s very kind of you.
LikeLike
*congratulate
LikeLike
Hi Joe!
When do you reckon “If You Should Fail” will be available in hard or soft copy in Canada? I read an excerpt and was bummed that I couldn’t purchase a copy and continue.
Thanks 🙂
Diana
LikeLike
Thanks for your interest, Diana – my north American publisher turned the book down I’m afraid 😦 but they are trying other publishers I think. I suspect you can order it from the UK but it might take a while to arrive. Hope you get a copy somehow eventually, anyway …
LikeLike
Dear Joe,
Your writing is so warmly clear that I feel we are old friends, so I began with Dear. You are proving to be one for my art assignment. In my final year of a Fine Art and Professional writing and publishing degree in Australia, my visual art topic is touch, and the title is Skin Hunger. Your article, ‘The power of touch: is this the sense we’ve missed most?’ (The Guardian, 28th Feb 2021) has been enthusiastically marked with a yellow highlighter, and your beautifully crafted words are finding expression in my artworks.
And dear Joe, thank you for writing the book on Failure and the Sentences other admirers have commented on, are also finding their way into my world.
LikeLike
Dear Victoria,
Thank you for these very kind words, and for reading my work! Good luck with your final assignments.
Joe
LikeLike
Hi Joe,
Annabelle here from BBC Radio Bristol. I work on the Mid Morning show with Joe Lemer tomorrow between 10-2pm, we run a segment on the show called the Q&A section where listeners send in their questions and we try find experts to help us answer them. I was just wondering if you know the answer to this question “Why are country roads so windy, why weren’t they built straight?”. If you knew the answer and would be willing to have a chat live with us on air tomorrow at 12:50PM we would love to hear what you have to say! Please pop me an email: annabelle.martin1@bbc.co.uk or give me a call: 07709 980406.
Best wishes,
Annabelle
LikeLike
Just finished reading: First You Write a Sentence. Was it a challenge? Yes. Mainly because I was running round like an excited puppy tracking down in eagerness some of the other authors you mention. Was it a hard read? Yes it was, but I have pages of vocabulary to acquaint myself with on cold, winter nights now – so that’s a bonus. It was worth reading just for the last few pages, as they brought me a level of insight that was priceless.
On page 206 you wrote that “If our lives have any point, which I doubt,…” you must know that your words are like a pinball machine that bounce off people from all over the world, and, in turn encourage us to send our own offerings out into the ether in the belief our words will find the eyes there were destined for, or the ears they were meant to bounce off. Connecting with others is point enough – words are the glue in a vast human jigsaw and the modellers of those words have a priceless task. Yes, I used that word twice. It’s important. (I realise this is unrelated post but felt compelled to contact you….and could only find this area. No need to publish it. Best regards and thank you).
LikeLike
Thanks Sally Ann. That’s lovely to hear.
LikeLike
First You Write a Sentence
This book is my revolution! Plagued until late middle age with three learning disorders hurt. I stubbed my toes on ‘the elements of style.’ You turned the lights on. I can see. I am grateful. Today I live in a fully furnished house.
Thank you!
This book must become prescribed reading in Higher Education.
LikeLike
First You Write a Sentence
I love writing. Plagued until late middle age with three undiagnosed learning disorders hurt. Each room stubbed my toes raw on ‘the elements of style.’ I read your book. The lights turned on. I saw a house, full of beautiful furniture before me. Thank you!
This book is the revolution I waited for. It must become a prescribed text in Higher Education.
LikeLike
That’s lovely to read. Thanks so much!
LikeLike
Hi! Undergraduate English Literature student at UEA here, I am completely enchanted by your work yet initially found it through your commentary on “New nature writing” (an area I wish to be my speciality in my postgraduate work). I am still in the process of working through all of your available work but as a fledgling essayist and writer of which a voice has yet to be fully realised, your work has been an invaluable resource and ongoing source of inspiration in helping me envision and craft my authorial identity. 🙂
LikeLike
That’s brilliant to hear. Thank you! And good luck with your own writing.
LikeLike
Hi Joe! I hope you keep this website with your various writing up. I don’t know how I stumbled upon you but I remember your “History, Memory and the Everyday” especially having an impact on me. I find myself coming to peruse whenever I am needing a little something interesting in my life.
LikeLike
Thank you!
LikeLike
I purchased *First You Write a Sentence* by Joe Moran on a perfectly ordinary Tuesday. The birds were singing. The sun was shining. A small elderly woman was purchasing a cabbage. Somewhere in France, a man named Philippe was losing a chess game to his own reflection. Life was beautiful. Life had structure. Life had punctuation.
Then I opened page one.
The first sentence entered my eyes without knocking.
I have not seen my family since.
At first, I thought this was a book about writing. HILARIOUS. I was so young then. So full of hope. I had no idea that Joe Moran had spent his life constructing a literary guillotine specifically designed to execute my ability to form coherent thoughts. This is not a book. This is an elaborate Victorian curse disguised as a paperback. You do not read it. It reads YOU. It reads your mortgage. It reads the terms and conditions of your birth. It reads the tiny, shameful sentence you once wrote in a birthday card to your grandmother and uses it to summon an entity from beneath the Earth’s crust.
By page three, I began sweating in italics.
By page seven, I was hearing the word “however” spoken in my deceased grandfather’s voice from inside the plumbing.
By page twelve, I had barricaded the doors with dictionaries and was whispering “subject, predicate, object” to a jar of mayonnaise because I no longer trusted anyone who couldn’t identify a transitive verb.
MY MAYONNAISE KNOWS WHAT IT DID.
Joe Moran writes about sentences with the disturbing composure of a man who has personally witnessed the birth of God and found the opening clause slightly weak. He discusses language as though every word were a tiny, trembling employee in a cosmic office, desperately trying to impress a manager who has been dead since 1847. I suspect he was born during a thunderstorm in a room containing seventeen typewriters, three dying swans, and a priest who had accidentally swallowed the complete works of Shakespeare.
I am not saying Joe Moran is supernatural.
I am saying that every time I place a comma, my basement light flickers.
Yesterday, I attempted to write “I need milk” on a grocery list.
I wrote: “I—”
The pen snapped.
The refrigerator began laughing.
A pigeon landed on the windowsill, looked directly into my soul, and whispered, “You haven’t established the antecedent.”
I HAVE NOT SLEPT SINCE.
My neighbor, Dennis, knocked on my door at 2:43 a.m. to ask whether I had heard a strange noise. I told him it was probably the radiator. Then I remembered that “probably” was an adverb and began screaming so violently that Dennis moved to another postcode. He left behind a casserole. I cannot eat it. I have not established whether the casserole is the subject or the object of the sentence.
At some point, I became convinced that the book was communicating with me through the arrangement of its paragraphs. I began reading the negative space between the words. I found a message there. It said, “THE SEMICOLON HAS AWAKENED.”
I called the police.
They asked me to explain the emergency.
I said, “There are two independent clauses, officer, and something is coming between them.”
They hung up.
THEY HUNG UP ON A MAN WHO HAD DISCOVERED THE ARCHITECTURE OF REALITY.
I tried throwing the book into a river. The river returned it. I burned it in my garden. The flames arranged themselves into a perfectly grammatical paragraph about my moral inadequacy. I buried it beneath an oak tree, but the tree began producing footnotes. I launched it into the sea in a bottle, and three days later a Norwegian fisherman sent me a postcard that contained nothing but a single, devastatingly well-placed colon.
The colon had two dots.
TWO.
LIKE EYES.
WATCHING.
I have now begun to suspect that punctuation is not a system of marks but a primitive surveillance network created by ancient beings who feed upon the hesitation between a thought and its expression. The comma is their smallest soldier. The apostrophe is their hook. The ellipsis is the sound of something crawling toward you through the walls while you pretend not to hear it.
And the full stop?
The full stop is the door closing.
Joe Moran knows.
HE HAS ALWAYS KNOWN.
Last night, I dreamed I was standing in an enormous white room. There were no windows. No doors. Only a desk, a chair, and a single sheet of paper. At the far end of the room stood Joe Moran, dressed entirely in the color of printer ink. He handed me a pen.
“Write a sentence,” he said.
I begged him to let me go.
He smiled.
“First,” he said.
I woke up with the word “first” carved into a block of cheddar cheese.
I HAVE NO MEMORY OF PURCHASING THE CHEDDAR.
My doctor says I need rest. My therapist says I need to stop assigning agency to inanimate objects. My priest says he has never seen a case this severe and has requested a transfer to a parish without books. My mother says I was always a dramatic child, but she says that in a sentence with a subordinate clause, and I can no longer bear to look at her.
I have begun speaking exclusively in fragments.
No verbs.
No hope.
Just me.
And the punctuation.
Always the punctuation.
Yesterday, I looked into a mirror and said, “I am a person.”
The mirror replied, “Are you?”
I shattered it.
Seven years of bad luck. Seven years of grammatical uncertainty. Seven years of waking at precisely 4:17 a.m. with the sensation that somewhere, in a distant room, a man is rearranging the words in my obituary.
I have contacted a lawyer to explore whether I can sue Joe Moran for damages to my internal monologue. The lawyer requested a written statement. I sent him a blank page. He replied that he understood completely and has since resigned from the legal profession to become a mushroom.
THE MUSHROOM IS WRITING A BOOK.
IT IS CALLED *FIRST YOU GROW A SENTENCE.*
I CANNOT ESCAPE.
I CANNOT ESCAPE.
I CANNOT—
You see what he has done to me? Even now, as I write this review, I am constructing sentences about my inability to construct sentences. I have become a snake devouring its own grammatical tail. I am a paragraph trapped inside a paragraph trapped inside a paragraph, and somewhere at the center of this literary Russian doll sits Joe Moran, sipping Earl Grey and calmly explaining why my third paragraph lacks rhythm.
I would give this book one star, but I fear that rating it would constitute a sentence, and I have reason to believe that the stars themselves are punctuation marks in a language spoken only by dying galaxies.
I would give it zero stars, but zero is a circle, and circles are suspicious.
I would give it negative one stars, but the minus sign is a dash, and I KNOW WHAT THE DASH DID.
So here is my final rating.
⭐
ONE STAR.
ONE DOT OF LIGHT IN AN ENDLESS GRAMMATICAL ABYSS.
ONE LAST, TREMBLING BEACON BEFORE THE INEVITABLE COLLAPSE OF MY LINGUISTIC CONSCIOUSNESS.
I came here to learn how to write.
I am leaving as a loose collection of nouns.
My name is no longer important.
My pronouns have fled.
My verbs are in hiding.
My adjectives have joined a militia in the Alps.
My adverbs are negotiating with the United Nations.
The book sits on my desk.
It has not moved in six hours.
I know it has not moved because I have been watching it without blinking.
A single page has turned.
There is no wind.
There are no open windows.
I can hear the refrigerator humming in perfect iambic pentameter.
The mayonnaise is gone.
The pigeon is inside.
And on the final page, in handwriting that is unmistakably mine, there is a sentence I do not remember writing:
*First you write a sentence.*
I have just checked the author.
Joe Moran.
JOE.
MORAN.
THERE IS NO JOE MORAN.
THERE NEVER WAS A JOE MORAN.
THERE IS ONLY THE SENTENCE.
THERE HAS ONLY EVER BEEN THE SENTENCE.
I AM GOING TO THE WOODS.
I AM TAKING NO BOOKS.
I AM TAKING NO PENS.
I AM TAKING NO PAPER.
I AM TAKING A SPOON BECAUSE A SPOON CANNOT WRITE.
I HOPE.
I HOPE.
I—
ONE STAR.
*Reviewed by a former human being.*
LikeLike
👍
LikeLike
I hope you feel better 🙏🙏🙏
LikeLike